Lausanne (AFP)

The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday rejected a request filed with its ethics committee against Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa, because of its regulation considered insufficient of the transfer market.

"In the absence of evidence of specific facts that can be blamed" on the Italian-Swiss leader "on an individual basis", the executive committee of the Olympic body dismissed this request without opening an investigation.

In a "denunciation" of October 26, the Swiss sports management company Sport7 had criticized Mr. Infantino, member of the IOC since January 2020, his "support for organized crime which undermines the world of football player transfers".

Sport7 and his lawyer Philippe Renz, who have been battling since 2017 against the opacity of the transfer market and the practices of agents, had called for an ethical investigation "for the exclusion of Gianni Infantino", and his suspension in the meantime .

They had also questioned Fifa itself as well as the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which do not come under the jurisdiction of the IOC or its ethics commission, swept the Olympic body on Tuesday.

On eight pages, the letter addressed to the IOC accused Mr. Infantino of having maintained "a zone of lawlessness" for the benefit of the agents who, contrary to the usual rules on conflicts of interest, can be paid at the same time by the players and by selling and / or buying clubs.

Source of spectacular commissions, this practice of "double" or "triple" representation favors a cascade of criminal offenses ranging from money laundering to corruption and tax fraud, noted in 2018 a confidential report of the International Center for the Study of sport of Neuchâtel.

FIFA has certainly initiated in 2018 a reform of the transfer market, which it intends to adopt before next summer, to recreate an agent's license, cap their commissions, pass transactions through a "clearing house" and prohibit the "triple representation".

But Sport7 denounces the maintenance of the "double representation" club-player, while the Belgian federation for example chose to abolish it in the summer of 2020.

This procedure closed by the IOC was unrelated to the criminal investigation opened at the end of July 2020 against Gianni Infantino, for three meetings with the former head of the Swiss public prosecutor's office not mentioned in the proceedings concerning Fifa.

A Swiss prosecutor also noted, last December, "indications" that the leader may have been guilty of "unfair management" with a private jet flight paid for in 2017 by the football authority.

This accusation is not, however, formally the subject of an investigation, and FIFA has denounced a "malicious and defamatory" initiative.

© 2021 AFP